


Second Chances: Roman's Story

by callboxkat



Series: Second Chances [5]
Category: Sanders Sides, Sanders Sides (Web Series), Thomas Sanders
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Homeless, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Flashbacks, Gen, M/M, Roman has a rough time and makes some bad decisions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 11:43:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20705435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callboxkat/pseuds/callboxkat
Summary: In Roman’s senior year of high school, everything was looking up. He was the star of his school’s theater program. He had an acceptance letter to a selective university, a new car, and a loving boyfriend. A part of Roman almost couldn’t believe his luck—did he really deserve all this good fortune?—but Roman brushed these doubts aside. He was dedicated to chasing his dreams. Was it really any surprise that some of them were coming true? What else could be in store for a passionate, dazzling, chivalrous Prince like himself?Unfortunately, he would soon find that fate had other ideas.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Welcome to the installment of Second Chances that got so long I had to cut it in half! This is Roman’s story. 
> 
> I encourage you guys to read the warnings. If you can’t read this story for whatever reason, don’t feel bad! The rest of the AU will still make sense. It’s most important that you guys take care of yourselves.
> 
> One thing to remember as you read is that this is Roman’s view of the events that happened. This is how he remembers things, and how he perceived them at the time. As such, there may be some small details that aren’t quite accurate to reality, whether he’s purposefully altered them or not.
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: homelessness, insecurity, emotional manipulation/pressure, bad relationships, lying, arguments, breakup, false accusations

It was the evening of Roman’s first day working at the café. He, Patton, and Logan were all sitting in Patton’s and Logan’s living room, relaxing. Logan’s sister, Val, hadn’t come home yet, since she was out with some friends of hers.

To Roman, it seemed as good a time as any to get something off of his chest. As much as he hated to interrupt the calm atmosphere of the room, Roman felt that he owed an explanation to Patton and Logan. The couple had taken him in off the streets and let him stay in their home, and they hadn’t even asked for anything in return. They had a right to know why he had been homeless in the first place, and to know what kind of person they had let into their home. If Roman refused to share, he figured they would eventually start thinking he was some kind of criminal or something, which was the last thing he wanted.

He cleared his throat, interrupting the comfortable silence and drawing both Patton’s and Logan’s attention.

“Hey, guys…” Roman began nervously. “So, I’ve been thinking, and… you two have been really, so incredibly kind to me. And I’m—I’m so grateful for that. But… it really isn’t fair of me _not_ to tell you… why I was homeless. You deserve to know. So, um, if you guys still want to know, I’m ready to tell you.”

Patton, of course, was quick to reassure him. He abandoned the coloring books and pencils he had been using and hurried to face him. “Oh, Roman, you don’t have to do that! I wasn’t trying to push you before.” He had, in fact, asked Roman this very question the previous day, but he’d quickly backed off at Roman’s hesitancy.

Now, Roman shook his head, wanting to assure him that Patton hadn’t pushed him into anything. “No—it’s okay. You guys deserve to know. Is—is now an okay time?” If it wasn’t… well, Roman wasn’t quite sure that he would be able to summon the courage again.

Patton gave in and nodded. Logan simply looked expectant, closing his book and setting it in his lap.

So, Roman took a deep breath, in and out, to ready himself. And he told them.

He told them how, in his senior year of high school, everything had been looking up. He was the star of his high school’s theater program; he was getting A’s and B’s in all of his classes (Logan looked surprised to hear this, but Roman pretended not to notice); and he had a loving boyfriend, Jay, who was so supportive of Roman and his dreams of becoming an actor. He and his boyfriend were looking into universities, planning to stay as close to each other as possible after high school. The ideal scenario was that the two of them would get to attend the same university, and then get both work together, on the stage or as television actors. Roman loved the idea of seeing himself on the big screen one day, or even (dare he say it?) on_ Broadway_.

He told them about how he’d been accepted into the theater program at a highly sought-after university, and received a scholarship that seemed almost too good to be true. He told them about how proud his parents had been of him.

And, of course, he told them how it all went wrong.

…

It was late February, early in Roman’s final semester of high school, and Roman was getting ready for school. His boyfriend, Jay, usually drove him to class, since Roman didn’t have a car and his parents left home much earlier than he did on most days.

“Roman, _mijo_,” his _mamá _called. “Would you please check the mailbox for me?”

“Can’t you check it when you leave?” Roman asked, looking up from his laptop. It was _cold _outside, and his hair was still damp from his shower. He would like to hide indoors for a little while longer, thank you.

“Roman,” his dad said pointedly from the kitchen table, glancing up at him from over the rim of his coffee.

Roman sighed. “Fine, fine.” He closed his laptop and grabbed his coat, shoving his feet into his stylish black boots. He unlocked the front door and walked down the lawn towards the mailbox, his footsteps crunching on the frost-covered grass. He huddled down into the collar of his coat until he reached the end of the yard. He stepped into the street, careful not to slip on the thin layer of ice there, and opened the mailbox. The metal hinge creaked in protest, and a couple of tiny icicles broke free and fell.

Inside, a thick envelope sat on top of the stack of mail. Roman felt only mildly curious about it at first, but when he was about to grab the entire stack, he saw the characteristic logo stamped across it. It was the seal of the Saint Gabriel Academy of Fine Arts. Roman suddenly felt as frozen as the ground beneath him, staring at it. It was too soon, wasn’t it? He wasn’t expecting to hear anything back from the colleges he’d applied to for another month, at_ least_, let alone _this_ one. Of all the colleges he had applied to, this was the one that Roman most wanted to go to. It had a very prestigious acting program, known across the country; and, of course, it was _very_ exclusive. Despite how selective it was, Roman had insisted on applying, just in case. He wouldn’t earn any opportunity he didn’t pursue in the first place. And it wasn’t as if he saw himself as a sub-par actor, or that other people did, either. Several people, including the head of his high school’s theater program, had actually encouraged him to apply to the school.

Admittedly, Roman wasn’t sure how many of them actually expected him to get in. He knew that even his boyfriend, as supportive as he was, had his doubts.

…

“Are you sure you want to apply there?” Roman remembered his boyfriend asking, watching as he scrolled through the university’s website. They were sharing an armchair in Jay’s house at the time, Roman practically sprawled on top of his boyfriend. It probably would have looked uncomfortable to a bystander, but Roman was perfectly content. “I mean, it’s kind of far, isn’t it? And do you really think you’d get in? They only take, like, the _best _actors, right?”

“What?” Roman had joked. “Are you saying I’m not the best?”

Jay laughed. “Well, of course_ I _think you are. I just don’t want you to waste your money on the application fee if you don’t get in. And we both know _I’d _never get in, and I’d be heartbroken if you left me.” He gave Roman a pouty look.

“There’s nearby schools,” Roman said. “If I get in, you can go to one of those! We can see each other all the time.”

Jay pursed his lips. He was starting to look annoyed, not just worried.

“Look,” Roman said. “I really want to go to this school. Would it be so bad if we didn’t go to the same one? Besides, it’s just the application. I don’t have to accept even if they do let me in.”

Jay looked at him for a long moment. “Okay,” he sighed. “You can apply.” Then he grinned. “Just don’t come after me asking for help paying that application fee,” he joked.

Roman laughed.

…

Roman snapped back to the present as the front door opened.

“Roman?” his _mamá_ called. _“¿Qué pasa?”_

He realized he had been standing in front of the mailbox for far too long. He shook his head, snatched up the pile of letters, and closed the mailbox, sending a rain of small icicles clattering down in his haste. They sparkled like shards of broken glass on the frozen earth.

“_Lo siento, Mamá,”_ he called back. “I’m coming.”

He hurried inside after her and shut the door. He took the first, thick envelope off of the stack and gave his _mamá _the rest.

“Whatcha got there?” his dad asked, watching as Roman sat pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and sat down. Roman was staring at the envelope in his hand like it held the secrets of the universe.

“It’s….” Roman let him see the envelope. He could hear his _mamá _approaching from the other room. She gasped when she saw the logo.

“_¡Ábrelo, ábrelo!”_ she urged.

Roman smiled, happy that she was as excited as he was.

Of course, there was voice in the back of his head, whispering that it was not a good sign at all that he’d gotten this response so soon. Saying that he’d only gotten it so early because the school had decided to deny him the second they received his application. He stubbornly ignored that voice, and he opened the envelope. If the envelope held bad news, then it would be better to get it over with.

Several papers were inside. Was that a good sign? Surely they would have only sent one if they were denying him, right? Roman held his breath as he pulled out the first page. He scanned it, his hands shaking slightly.

_“Mr. Roman Prince,_

_We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted—"_

Roman shrieked, jumping up so fast that his chair fell over backwards. His startled father spilled his coffee, and his_ mamá_ had to snatch the rest of the papers off the table to keep them from getting drenched. Roman didn’t even care. He spun around in a circle, reading those words over and over again.

Accepted.

_Accepted._

He’d been accepted!

Sure, he still had to figure out how to afford the tuition; and Jay would be a bit sad that they wouldn’t be attending the same school; but Roman wouldn’t let those things bring him down at this moment_. _He’d just been accepted into his dream school!

He only stopped his excited bouncing and spinning when his _mamá_ gasped.

“_Mijo_, look!” she cried. She had pulled out the other papers in the envelope and was reading them. “You—They are giving you a scholarship!”

Roman stopped, dizzy with giddiness (and from the spinning). “A scholarship?” he echoed. He grabbed the paper, and he almost fell over at the numbers he saw there.

“Roman,” his dad rumbled after a moment, amused, “close your mouth, you’ll start catching flies.”

“I—but I—”

Roman’s _mamá _pulled him into a rib-cracking hug—she was small but deceptively strong—and his dad got up and clapped him on the back, smiling. “Congratulations.”

…

Roman stood in the yard, too impatient to wait inside his house. He didn’t even notice the chill. He held the envelope in both hands as he rocked back and forth on his heels, waiting for Jay to arrive. He was so excited to tell his boyfriend the news!

His smile widened, if that were possible, as his boyfriend’s black car pulled up to the curb. One of the band logo bumper stickers on the back had come loose, flapping slightly in the wind until he came to a stop. Jay honked the horn once.

Roman hurried to the car, pausing to fix the loose bumper sticker. Jay would be upset if they drove up to the school with it like that. With that done, Roman hopped into the passenger seat.

“Jay, look,” he said before he’d even finished putting on his seatbelt. He was practically vibrating with excitement.

“I’m driving, babe,” Jay said, pulling away from the curb.

“I got in!” Roman cried, unable to wait until they got to the school. “I got in, and I even got a scholarship! I can go!”

“You got in…?” he glanced over at Roman, and seemed to realize then where Roman meant. “Oh.”

“Yeah!”

The car was silent for a few seconds.

“Jay?” Roman asked, his smile faltering.

“Yeah, babe, sorry. I’m happy for you.” He stopped a little suddenly at a stop sign, and Roman’s seatbelt bit into his shoulder as he lurched forward.

“It’s going to be great!” Roman continued, his smile returning even as a slightly uneasy feeling churned in his gut. “You can visit me, and I can come see you. We’ll see each other all the time. Besides, there’s breaks and stuff.”

“It’s far is all,” Jay said eventually. “And there’s still textbooks, and housing, and meal plans, and other supplies. Even with the scholarship, I’m just not sure you can afford it.”

“I _can_,” Roman insisted. “It’ll be fine. And you can come see me all the time!”

Jay frowned.

“What’s the problem, anyway? We’ve talked about this before. You said it was okay if I applied.”

“Well, yeah, but I didn’t think you’d actually get in!”

And there it was. A long, awkward silence fell over them. Finally, Jay pulled over and unlocked the car doors. They were still three blocks from the school.

“Look, can you get out?” Jay sighed. “You can walk from here, right? I need a minute to think.”

Roman sighed. He’d be late, but…. “Yeah, fine.” He picked up his backpack from the floor and put his papers inside while Jay waited impatiently. “I’ll see you in English?”

“Yeah.”

Roman leaned over for a kiss, but Jay seemed not to notice, reaching over to open the door for him. Trying not to feel hurt, Roman got out, and watched as Jay drove off. That bumper sticker had come partially unstuck again, and it flapped in the wind as he went.

…

Roman was late to class that day, unsurprisingly. To add to his embarrassment, his English teacher, Ms. Dawerst, was the sort who locked the door after class started. So, Roman had to knock, wait for the teacher to open the door; and only _then_ could he go in. There would be no slinking inside, no going unnoticed by any but his very least observant peers.

Not that Roman cared all that much about perfect attendance, but the whole charade seemed a bit much to him. There were some nerds—like his nemesis, that _dramaturd _in the theater program who was always shooting down his ideas—who would probably melt on the spot if they found themselves in his place. Roman was mostly just annoyed. A few of the houses had not shoveled their sidewalks, and the snow had soaked through the hems of his jeans. He just wanted to sit down and get on with the school day.

He heard a couple of kids snickering as the door opened, and Roman was met with his very unimpressed-looking English teacher.

“Ah, so you_ have_ decided to join us today. I’m out of packets, so you’ll have to share.”

She stepped back, _tsk_-ing with disapproval as he handed over his late slip. Roman shrugged nonchalantly and entered the room. Jay was there, sitting in the back corner as usual, but the seat beside him was already taken. Roman would have to take one of the empty seats at the front of the room.

At least this way he could read the board properly, he reflected, trying to stay upbeat as he sat down. (Roman should probably have had glasses, but he didn’t want to look like a nerd. Besides, his eyes were one of his best features.)

He scooted his desk nearer to that of the girl sitting beside him, and she moved her water bottle out of the way so that he could see the packet. Class started again, talking about poetry or something, but Roman was distracted. He kept glancing back towards the corner, towards Jay, who didn’t look up once. The envelope in his backpack felt like it was burning a hole through the fabric.

…

Jay ignored all of Roman’s texts that night, which hurt terribly, but Roman tried to pretend that everything was fine. Roman didn’t tell his parents or anyone else that anything was wrong. He just kept up his usual demeanor and talked excitedly with them about his future. It wasn’t hard, to be honest. Roman was a good actor, and besides, he _was_ excited. He’d gotten into Saint Gabriel! How could he not be excited?

Jay would come around, he was sure of it.

The next day, Roman asked his parents if one of them would be willing to drive him to school. He claimed that Jay was busy that morning and wouldn’t be able to take him.

“Of course, _mijo_,” his _mamá_ said. She looked a little concerned, probably because Roman almost never went to school with anyone but Jay. She and his dad left for work well before he had to leave, so if they drove Roman to school, he’d be there awkwardly early. But Jay hadn’t answered Roman when he asked if he was going to pick him up that day, so being awkwardly early was pretty much Roman’s only option.

Technically, he supposed, he _could_ walk, but it was far. He’d be tired well before he got there, and his outfit would be absolutely _ruined_. Roman shuddered at the thought of showing up to class looking anything but his best. The day before had been bad enough, and that was only three blocks.

Ten minutes later, he and his _mamá _were outside, scraping ice off of her car. The car engine rumbled, the heat on high to try to help melt the ice. Roman’s backpack already sat inside, on the floor by the back seat.

They finished clearing the windows, finally, and got ready to leave. Roman had just placed his hand on the passenger side door handle when a horn honked, startling him. He turned around, and there was a black car at the end of the driveway. Roman couldn’t see the back of it from his angle, but he knew it was covered with band bumper stickers.

“Oh, he came after all!” Roman’s _mamá_ said. “Do you want to ride with him instead?”

Roman took his hand off of the handle. He cast an apologetic look at his _mamá_, thanked her for the offer to drive him, and then practically ran to Jay’s car.

“You came,” he gasped, grinning, as he threw open the door.

“Of course I did,” Jay said, the corner of his mouth going up in a smile. “Now get in; let’s go.”

“We’re going to be super early,” Roman pointed out, already getting in the car.

“Yeah, well, I wanted to make sure I caught you,” Jared shrugged. He gestured at Roman’s _mamá_’s running car to prove his point.

They drove to school, talking about normal things. They didn’t bring up Saint Gabriel, or their argument the day before. Soon, though, they pulled up in the mostly empty school parking lot, and Jay put the car in park.

Roman looked around for his backpack and realized it was still in the other car. Whoops.

“Ro?” Jay said.

“Yeah?” Roman asked, stilling.

“So… I’ve been thinking. And, um, if you really want to go to this school—if you really want to leave me—I can’t stop you. I don’t want you to, obviously, but—”

“I’m not leaving you,” Roman protested. Jay hated to be interrupted, but Roman couldn’t help it.

Jay blew air out through his nose. “Well, I mean, it’s just—like, I want to be able to see you. And, you know, we’re both going to be busy with school soon, and I’m worried that you’re going to forget about me. There’ll be lots of cute guys at that college. How do I know they’re not going to try to take you from me?”

Roman frowned, hurt by the implication that he would ever cheat on Jay.

“Maybe we should just forget it. I should have known you’d want to be single in college.” Jay sulked, looking out the window. “I mean, why else would you pick a school so far away?”

“Wait, what?” Roman cried. “No! That’s not what this is about!”

“So you’re not leaving me?”

“No!” Roman floundered. “I’m not—I—if you—” He swallowed, feeling tears building. “If you really want… I can find another school.” It wouldn’t be the same, it wouldn’t give him as many opportunities, but he didn’t want to leave Jay. Roman realized how it must seem to his boyfriend, that he’d chosen a school that was so far away, that his boyfriend wasn’t going to. Jay probably thought he was trying to get away from him. But that wasn’t true at all! He had to know that!

Jay leaned back in his driver’s seat, looking up at the ceiling of his car.

“Fine,” Jay eventually said.

“…Fine?” Roman echoed.

“You can go,” he said. “I guess it’s kind of sh*tty of me to try to stop you. Just… don’t leave me, okay?”

“I won’t,” Roman promised.

Jay leaned over and kissed him. Roman blushed. They almost never kissed near the school. It wasn’t as if they were afraid that people at their high school wouldn’t accept them as a couple—at least half the theater program was in some way not straight and cis, for example—but Jay preferred to keep their relationship low-key. Roman was sure that a lot of the other students had figured out that they were together, but a lot of them probably thought that they were just close friends. (Not to imply that there was anything inferior about friendships compared to romantic relationships, of course; Roman and Jay just happened to be close friends _and_ boyfriends.)

Roman leaned into the kiss, smiling against Jay’s lips. He assumed that this exception to their usual rule was because there were so few people at the high school so early in the morning. The parking lot was still nearly empty. Whatever the reason, he was happy to kiss his boyfriend back.

…

For a while after that, things seemed to be going well. Better than well, in fact. Things were absolutely wonderful.

Roman had accepted his place at the Saint Gabriel Academy of Fine Arts with his boyfriend’s blessing. He was keeping up his grades, he’d scored the starring role in the last play their theater department was putting on for the year, and he was happily with Jay. Roman’s parents were so proud of him and his achievements that they bought him a new car as a reward. It wasn’t his dream car: it had no rims of gold, no windshield of diamond; but it was new, and it was _his_.

Roman’s future was bright, glowing with stage lights and rich with the cheers of his adoring fans.

…

Unfortunately, by the time spring came around, things had begun to change.

Jay had seemed a bit different for a while. Roman supposed that it had started back when he accepted his place at Saint Gabriel. At first, Roman thought he might have been imagining it. Then, he thought that Jay might have been stressed about their upcoming graduation, and the fact that they were going to different schools. But the situation quickly spiraled.

As Roman’s senior year progressed, his boyfriend grew more and more controlling. He began demanding to know where Roman was at random times, reading his text messages, and being around him as much as possible. Even though he claimed to be fine with Roman going to Saint Gabriel, he made a point of often saying things like “I love how I get to be around you all the time,” or “I’m so happy when I’m with you,” and lamenting how miserable he’d be when Roman was gone. Words that seemed nice on the surface, but whose implied double meaning dug into him like barbs.

To Roman, at the time, it seemed like a sudden change. Roman couldn’t fathom why Jay would start acting like that out of nowhere, but it felt very out of character. It was only later, much later, that Roman began to consider that Jay might have always been that way. That it might have simply taken the threat of Roman leaving him—even if only to attend a different school—to bring those traits out of him enough that Roman could finally see it.

At first, Roman did his best to adapt to Jay’s demands, mostly because he didn’t want to ruin their relationship with less than three months left of their senior year. He saw Jay every day, half of his classes were with him, and Jay was just as involved with theater as he was. Plus, as strained as their relationship had become, Roman still loved him.

But as time went on, Roman’s boyfriend grew more and more overbearing, until finally, Roman had had enough. He told Jay in no uncertain terms that he needed to back off. They fought, and Roman broke up with him.

One small mercy was that they broke up on a Friday, so Roman didn’t have to see him the next day at school. Regardless, the next two days were filled with a lot of rather un-princely crying. His phone, stuck in a sock and shoved under a pile of clothes in his closet, kept blowing up with text messages—from Jay, of course—that he refused to let himself read, let alone answer.

He tried to tell himself that it was for the best. “Good riddance,” he murmured to himself, curled up on his bed in the dark, hugging his beloved stuffed bunny, Mrs. Fluffybottom. “Good riddance. I deserve better than that—than that _jerk_.”

He was too upset to come up with a better, more hurtful nickname.

There was a knock on the door.

“_¿Mijo?_” a voice called, slightly muffled.

Roman debated whether or not he wanted to answer. It wasn’t as if his _mamá _would be fooled into thinking he wasn’t here, but maybe she would think he was asleep. He wasn’t sure he could face having company at the moment.

“I have hot chocolate,” she tempted.

Roman sniffed, rubbing at one eye. He said nothing for a moment, but his _mamá_ didn’t leave.

“With cinnamon?” he asked, wincing internally at how rough his voice sounded.

“_¡Sí, claro!_” his _mamá_ called back, as if offended that there had ever been any doubt about it. Roman almost smiled. He’d always had cinnamon in his hot chocolate when his _mamá _made it, ever since he was a kid. He’d tried it once out of curiosity, and now it was the only way he liked the drink.

“Five minutes?”

“Five minutes,” she agreed. “_Te espero abajo, cariño_.”

Roman reluctantly sat up, rubbing away tear tracts with his sleeve. He dragged himself out of bed and padded down the hall to the bathroom, where he splashed cool water on his face, brushed his hair, and used a bit of makeup to hide some of the redness around his eyes. Five minutes later, he went to meet his _mamá_ downstairs.

He expected to find her in the kitchen, and was surprised to instead see her sitting in the living room, a mug of hot chocolate held in her hands. Another mug sat on the coffee table. She patted the sofa cushion beside her.

Roman slunk into the room, rubbing his arm, and sat down next his _mamá._ He picked up his hot chocolate, welcoming the warm smell of cinnamon and chocolate wafting up from the ceramic mug, and took a sip. The drink was still hot, but not too hot to drink. Roman would happily take a delicious chocolate drink as an excuse not to talk, even if it had lured him from his sanctuary in the first place. His _mamá_ knew that he had broken up with Jay—it was hard to hide, what with how upset he was—but she didn’t know the details.

His _mamá_ took a sip of her own hot chocolate, then turned to Roman. Despite her hot chocolate mustache, he couldn’t help but look down towards the floor as if expecting to be scolded.

“Roman, you can talk to me,” she said. “I want to help. I know you and Jared—”

“Jay,” Roman corrected. He preferred to be called Jay. Roman wasn’t sure why that still mattered to him, but it did.

“I know you and Jay were very close. I’m sorry that it didn’t work out.”

Roman gripped his hot chocolate tighter, swallowing against the lump in his throat.

“If there is anything that I can do—?”

“Can we just sit?” Roman asked. “Just… sit here?”

“Of course, _mijo_,” she said. “Whatever you need.”

They sat together in the dark, drinking their cinnamon hot chocolate in a companionable silence.

“Where’s dad?” Roman asked after a while.

“He’s in bed already,” his _mamá_ answered. “He has work early tomorrow.”

Roman nodded.

“I can take you to school tomorrow.”

“Thanks, _Mamá_,” Roman said.

They fell silent again after that, and they stayed in the living room well after they had both finished their hot chocolate, until finally Roman’s _mamá_ decided that it was time for bed.

…

Roman was nervous for his return to school on Monday. So nervous, in fact, that he skipped English class. He wanted to avoid having to see Jay. He could get the notes from one of his friends, he told himself. He didn’t want to be around in case Jay decided to make a scene, or for the sheer awkwardness and pain of the situation. He was conveniently absent that day whenever Jay would be around, in fact.

Finally, at theater practice, Roman couldn’t avoid Jay any longer. He was playing the lead in the play. He couldn’t skip.

Jay was, of course, at the practice. He played a more minor character, but they had several scenes together. To Roman’s surprise, Jay almost completely ignored him. An outsider might have thought that nothing was wrong, and that they were simply cast mates working on a production together. Of course, the rest of the theater department knew better than that, and Roman got a lot of strange looks.

The only one who seemed completely oblivious was Roman’s nemesis, Logan. He was probably just happy that Roman wasn’t trying to take any creative licenses that day. They didn’t get into a single argument, which was not so much unusual as practically unheard of for them.

…

Jay more or less ignored Roman for a solid week after their breakup. By then, Roman had started trying to move past it. He started to focus more on getting ready for college, and told himself that maybe he could even find himself a new boyfriend on campus once he was settled in. Preferably not a fellow actor, if only to save himself from potential pain and awkwardness in the future. Having to see Jay so often after they had broken up, having to act like everything was fine, was a struggle.

Time passed, and the weekend when they’d perform their play was rapidly approaching. In addition to his excitement about his upcoming final high school performance, Roman was relieved. He’d be done with theater for the year, and it would be one less time of the day when he’d have to be near Jay. Even as the pressure to finish preparing the show grew, Roman found himself growing more at ease at the thought that his torture would soon be over.

So, naturally, the week before the performance, everything came crashing down.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: homelessness, insecurity, emotional manipulation/pressure, bad relationships, lying, arguments, breakup, false major accusations (some are not specified, the other is academic dishonesty), gossip, peer pressure, implied homophobia, avoiding your problems, rejection, Remus is talked about but doesn’t actually appear

It started almost slowly.

One day, Roman came to school, and felt like everybody was staring at him. To be fair, Roman often felt this way—he was a fashion icon, after all, with talent to boot, why wouldn’t they stare?—but today, that attention didn’t exactly seem positive.

He thought at first that, maybe, he was simply imagining things. That he was paranoid after his breakup. But it soon became clear that he was not in fact imagining the stares, the whispers that would suddenly cut off when he entered a room or looked in their direction.

He tried to figure out what could be going on. Had they found out about his breakup? About him being gay to begin with? Neither of those seemed like likely causes. He couldn’t see why people would suddenly care about the end of someone else’s relationship (one that hadn’t exactly been public knowledge to begin with), and it wasn’t exactly a secret that Roman was gay. He was pretty open about it.

Maybe it had something to do with the play coming up? Although Roman wasn’t sure why that would garner _negative_ attention.

He decided to just wait and see if things went back to normal the next day.

…

Roman tapped his pen against his desk, agitated. People kept casting him looks. Whispers carried up to him from the back of the room. He caught his name a couple of times, and even, he thought, Jay’s.

Jay wasn’t in school that day, Roman noticed. Now that he thought about it, he was pretty sure that he hadn’t seen him the day before, either.

His teacher had already stopped class twice to announce that they needed to pay better attention to the lesson, but most people didn’t seem to care.

Roman didn’t go to his next class. He hid in one of the stairwells. It wasn’t where he usually went to skip class, which wasn’t common to begin with, and it certainly wasn’t the best place to avoid being spotted. Regardless, he was starting to think that he’d made it through the whole class, when, ten minutes before the bell, there were footsteps at the top of the staircase. Roman, sitting at the landing where they switched direction, froze and looked up.

A girl stood there, maybe a year behind him, clutching a hall pass in one hand. She, too, had frozen at the sight of him.

“Um,” she said. “Sorry.” She made to leave, probably to use another stairwell, but Roman stood up.

“Wait,” he cried, sounding desperate. He didn’t know why he said that. He’d never spoken to this girl in his life. He’d seen her a few times, but he didn’t even know her name.

She hesitated, then slowly turned back around.

“Do you….” Roman sighed. “Do you know what’s going on? Why’s everyone been so weird the last couple of days?”

She frowned, looking back at him. She looked at him for a few seconds, then seemed to take pity on him. She clutched her hall pass more tightly, like it was a lifeline, and made her way down to where he stood. She got out her cell phone, and took a few seconds to navigate to something on it before shoving it towards him. It was a group chat. From the look of it, it must have included half the school. That couldn’t be good, especially since Roman wasn’t included.

He distantly noticed that the girl's contact name was Brittney.

“Is… is it true?” the girl—Brittney—asked hesitantly.

Roman frowned. “I genuinely have no idea what you mean,” he admitted. He scrolled to the beginning of the chat, past all the replies. There, at the top…

…was a message from Jay.

…

Roman stared at the message, which took up the whole screen and then some. His hands were shaking, and he had to put both on the phone to keep from dropping it as he tried to read the solid block of text. The girl who’d lent the phone to him shifted from foot to foot, looking uncomfortable.

Roman swallowed. He felt somehow as if he were being simultaneously baked alive and submerged in icy water. He willed himself to scroll down past the first message, and then he saw the photos.

Fake photos, of course, or photos that had been taken completely out of context. Roman, for the first time, wished that Jay wasn’t so talented at storytelling and photo editing. Most of the photos didn’t directly confirm anything that Jay had said about Roman, but they certainly supported the idea that he wasn’t who he claimed to be.

Brittney cleared her throat, and Roman jumped. He realized he’d been staring at the phone in silence for a long time. The screen had gone dark without him realizing.

“Oh… um, here,” he said, his voice a croak. He handed back the phone.

“Thanks,” she said. She awkwardly pocketed it, then studied him for a second. “I, um… I need to go.” She held up the hall pass as an explanation.

“It’s not true,” Roman said. He was suddenly very aware of what the rest of the school must have thought about him, and he was very aware of the fact that he hadn’t yet tried to change anyone’s mind. “None of that is true. I—I mean, we were dating, and we broke up, but… none of what he’s saying is true. _None _of it. I swear.”

Brittney took a half step back at his earnest tone, her eyes widening slightly. Roman deflated, taking a couple of steps back too. He didn’t mean to corner this girl in a stairwell.

“Sorry,” he whispered. “Just—just go.”

She started down the stairs again, then glanced back. She chewed her lip for a moment, seeming to debate saying something, then clearly changed her mind. She took the rest of the stairs quickly, and she disappeared from view.

Roman put his back against the brick wall and slid down to the floor.

…

By this time of the story, tears were silently rolling down Roman’s face. He kept his gaze fixed determinedly on the puzzle that he and Patton had put together, still laid out proudly on the coffee table. Logan and Patton were both silent, neither moving. They didn’t seem to know what to do.

Neither did Roman, except to keep talking.

…

Roman didn’t know what to do.

He tried to talk to his friends, but none of them would let him get close. He tried texting them, tried explaining that it was all a lie, that Jay was the one in the wrong, but no one responded. Half of them didn’t even read the messages.

He went home that day feeling utterly crushed.

His parents knew something was wrong, of course, but they probably thought Roman was still merely upset about his breakup, and they didn’t push the subject.

Roman couldn’t tell them what had happened. What Jay had said about him. He could only hope that no one else would tell _them_. Roman was always on his best behavior, unwilling to let anyone, let alone his parents, think that he might be anything other than the chivalrous Prince he presented himself as.

It was a touchy subject, and for good reason.

Something that most people didn’t know about Roman was that he was not an only child. In fact, he was a twin. But Roman didn’t exactly see his brother very often. He… wasn’t like Roman. Or, he was, but he was like Roman’s reflection if he stood in front of the world’s most disturbing fun house mirror. He had been in and out of juvie since they were twelve. It seemed only a matter of time before he ended up in jail, especially since their eighteenth birthday was coming up in only a few months. Roman knew his brother would never change.

The last thing Roman wanted was for his parents to think he was following in his brother’s footsteps. And he knew, he just knew, that if they found out about what had happened and what Jay had said about him, they would probably believe it. Roman and his brother—who no one in his family talked about unless they absolutely had to—were identical. It would have been easier had they been fraternal twins, but they were not. Roman knew that somewhere inside of him, there had always been the potential for him to be just like his brother. And his parents surely knew it too.

…

On Wednesday, Jay was back in school. He was constantly surrounded by a crowd. He suddenly had more friends than he ever had before. And Roman was alone for the first time in his life.

He was so, so alone.

He tried going to theater practice that night. He didn’t know why he thought it would be any different, but he hoped so. Maybe he thought that the other students would care too much about the upcoming performances to treat him any differently. But it wasn’t so.

He kept getting dirty looks from Jay’s crowd, and practically everyone avoided him. If anything, Roman realized, it was worse being among the theater students than among the school as a whole. It seemed to Roman that in the school at large, about half knew of Jay’s messages in the massive group chat, but almost every single person in the theater department did.

…

“I didn’t,” Logan interrupted, very softly.

…

By the time they actually got to running through some of the scenes, Roman was feeling very bitterly, jittery, and not-very-glittery. He kept forgetting his lines, and each time he messed up, the other actor he was working with would roll their eyes. The usual good-hearted laughter and encouragement of the rest of the group was gone.

After a while, Logan, of course, came up to him. Just what Roman needed.

“What do you want, Book Germ?”

Logan sighed and started explaining Roman’s lines in that overly level voice of his. Roman didn’t know or care if it was intentional, but his tone felt very patronizing, and the strong smell of hand sanitizer that followed Logan like a cloud wasn’t helping Roman’s mood. He could feel his face growing red the longer Logan spoke. He knew his lines! He’d been practicing them for months!

“If you think you can do it better, maybe you should, you obnoxious nerd,” Roman snapped.

Logan cocked his head to one side, pinching his lips together. “That is the purpose of an understudy, not a dramaturge. I am not an actor.”

“Then stop telling me how to act!”

“I am merely attempting to explain your lines to you, since it is clear you are incapable of memorizing them unaided. The opening show is in less than—”

“I know when the show is!”

Logan licked his lips. He adjusted his tie, which was so straight that Roman wondered if he ironed it between classes. “Then I suggest you act like it,” he said.

“What do you want from me?” Roman asked, glaring at him. “Do you want me to quit? Heck, maybe we _should _let the understudy do it! Is that what you want?”

A few students around the room, who had naturally congregated to watch the argument, were nodding. Several whispered to each other. If it were even possible, Roman’s face turned redder.

“Excuse me,” a voice said before Logan could come up with a response. It was one of the faculty members of the theater department, the director of the play they were meant to be practicing. His arms were crossed. “Would it be alright with the two of you if we continued the rehearsal? I’d hate to interrupt your argument.”

Logan hesitated for a second, as if he wasn’t sure whether or not the teacher was being sarcastic. Roman rolled his eyes.

“Don’t stop on my account,” Roman said coldly, looking around at everyone, not just the teacher or Logan. He started off the stage, already removing pieces of his costume. A hat was cast to the wooden floor, then each glove. He made it back to the dressing room before his composure broke, and the tears started to fall. No one came to retrieve him.

It wasn’t unlike Roman to make a dramatic exit. He had a few times before, during arguments with his nemesis. But this one felt much more final.

…

Roman said nothing to his parents about what had happened. Not about how Jay had treated him, not about the lies his ex had told, not about the play. It was partially out of fear of Roman’s parents believing Jay’s lies, and partially out of sheer embarrassment about them knowing of the situation. He felt like he had failed. So, he pretended, to them, that everything was fine. He knew that they probably could have helped, that they could have talked to his teachers and gotten everything straightened out, but Roman decided that it would be better to try to deal with it himself, or if worse came to worst, to simply ride it out until graduation. He could deal with his newly found status as an outcast until he left for school. He still had another month of high school and the entire summer until that finally happened, but it seemed preferable to Roman to wait it out than to have to ask for help. He didn’t want to be known as the person who had to run to his parents because some kids at school were being mean. A Prince should fight his own battles, Roman told himself.

(He would grow to regret this decision later, unfortunately; but at the time, it seemed reasonable.)

His parents, of course, weren’t completely clueless; but Roman did his best to keep them in the dark. If they asked why he wasn’t eating as much lately, he claimed that it was nervous excitement about the play, about going to Saint Gabriel, about anything other than the real cause. If they asked why he didn’t hang out with friends from school much anymore, he claimed that it was because he was busy studying and practicing for the play.

Of course, Roman had dropped out of the play. It was clear that no one wanted him there, so he stopped showing up to practices. The only one who had contacted him about it was one of the theater department faculty members, who simply asked if he was planning to return or if they should plan to put the understudy on stage that weekend. He didn’t sound surprised when Roman refused. While he was perfectly polite during the exchange, Roman got the feeling that some of the other students had talked to the teacher and told him some details of Roman’s supposed… negative character traits.

…

“Wait,” Logan interrupted, sounding confused.

Roman glanced up at him, lifting his gaze from the puzzle on the coffee table for the first time in a while.

“Pardon me if this seems inconsiderate to ask—”

“Logan,” Patton said softly, as if this were something he’d had to tell his boyfriend several times in the past, “if you have to say something like that, that’s usually a clue that you shouldn’t say whatever you were going to say next.”

“No, it’s fine,” Roman sighed, glancing at Patton in appreciation. He blinked a few times and sat up straighter. “Go for it.”

Logan coughed, glancing at Patton with a slightly more self-conscious expression. “I was going to ask what any of this had to do with you becoming homeless,” he said. “Based on your story so far, it seems to me that this situation was all simple high school drama that should have passed as soon as we graduated. If you had actually gone to your parents or the school for aid, many of these issues could have been mitigated; but regardless, they should not have followed you for so long. I do not intend to belittle the pain you felt; but I simply do not understand how it could possibly have led to your later predicament.”

Roman swallowed. He could feel some resentment at Logan’s seeming dismissal of his problems starting to bubble up, and he did his best to push it back down. Logan probably didn’t mean to be rude. And Roman really was in no place to be upset with the man. He reminded himself that Logan had been pretty much a loner for as long as Roman had known him. He’d never known what it was like to be popular, let alone what it felt like to have that ripped away from him. And he figured he couldn’t relate to being with someone like Jay, either, or to how upset Roman had been at losing him. Logan was with _Patton_. The embodiment of sunshine. As far as Roman knew, Logan had never been with anyone else.

“Sorry, Ro,” Patton put in. “He’s just trying to understand is all.”

“No—I know,” Roman assured him. “I’m not mad.”

Patton released a breath, seeming relieved.

Logan glanced between them. “I’ve been told I sometimes lack tact,” he said slowly.

Roman just rubbed at his eyes. “You’re good, I guess,” he said. “This stuff is important, though, I swear.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to give us a condensed version?” Patton asked gently. His tone made it clear that he wasn’t asking for Roman to do so because he was bored or anything. He was asking simply out of consideration for Roman.

Roman shrugged helplessly. He… well, he sort of felt like he couldn’t do that. He hadn’t actually told anyone all of this before. He was still leaving out quite a few details, but he felt like he needed to tell as much of it as he could.

It was freeing, in a weird, simultaneously mortifying sort of way.

Patton looked like he wanted to say something else, but Roman cleared his throat, and they both let him continue his story.

…

The play’s performance came and went. Roman did not show up. They didn’t want him there, he knew. While a part of him wanted to show up to spite everyone, to prove that they—and especially Jay—hadn’t gotten to him, he also just wanted to curl up in bed with some cinnamon hot chocolate and his laptop and watch old episodes of _Glee_.

(He couldn’t do that, either, though, since his parents thought he was performing; and he couldn’t very well have them find him in his room during the show without having to answer some awkward questions).

His parents would usually have attended the show, but Roman told them that the tickets had sold out. They had wanted to call the school and complain about it, but Roman convinced them not to. He was glad that that worked. That would have been an awkward phone call, and very hard to explain.

After Roman missed the play’s performance, things only got worse at school. The other students of the drama department, of course, only avoided him more. Roman saw Logan on Monday morning by his locker, and the dramaturge had looked him over once before scoffing and turning away. No doubt he was angry that Roman hadn’t shown, even if he probably thought the production had been better off without him. Maybe he was just annoyed that all the time he’d put into berating Roman’s performance had gone to waste.

Whatever the case, it didn’t matter. Logan hating him was nothing new. It didn’t sting the way losing his friends stung, or ache the way not getting to be in his last high school play made him ache. Not at all.

Honestly, Roman’s biggest regret about dropping out of the play was the sheer amount of satisfaction he was sure that Jay got out of it.

_He got what he wanted,_ Roman thought. He had ruined his social life, taken away his friends, spoiled everyone’s impression of him, and pressured him into giving up the starring role in the last play of his high school career. Maybe, Roman hoped, Jay was satisfied.

…

The end of the school year was coming up fast.

Roman was getting ready for college, finishing final papers, studying for exams, and generally preparing to no longer be a high school student. He was quite eager to leave this building and never set foot inside again.

Classes had just finished for the day, and Roman was on his way to talk to his chemistry teacher about one of his assignments. The science department was on the opposite end of the school from his last class, so he had to walk past many of the other classrooms on the way.

One of those classrooms happened to be his English classroom. Roman heard voices coming from inside. He ignored them at first—it wasn’t exactly uncommon to hear voices in a classroom, obviously—but when he recognized who was talking to the teacher, he froze in his tracks.

It was Jay.

Roman slowly stepped back a few paces until he was in front of the doorway. Inside, Jay stood in front of the teacher’s desk, his head bowed as if embarrassed. The teacher, Ms. Dawerst, looked absolutely furious.

Roman had a bad feeling. Jay was toying with a ring around his right middle finger, something he did when he was lying. Roman inched closer, trying to hear what exactly was being said.

“I meant to tell you sooner, Ms. Dawerst, but… I guess I was just nervous. Roman is… well, you know Roman. He’s—”

“He’s what?” Roman demanded suddenly, announcing his presence. Suddenly, he’d had enough. “Standing right here? Tired of you lying to everyone because you can’t take—”

“Mr. Prince,” the teacher said, a warning in her voice.

“He’s lying,” Roman insisted.

“And how exactly would you know that if you don’t even know what he’s saying?” She arched an eyebrow, folding her arms carefully as if she’d caught him in her spider web.

“Because—because that’s all he’s been doing! He’s been trying to sabotage me for months!”

“Why would he do that?” she asked, seeming exasperated.

“Because I broke up with him!” Roman snapped, seething. “Because he can’t take that he’s alone and I don’t want anything to do with him anymore!”

“Mr. Prince, I couldn’t care less about your lovers’ squabble,” she said. “This is a matter of academic dishonesty.”

Roman paused. Academic dishonesty? What did that even mean? He glanced at Jay, who looked like he was trying to become one with the wall, refusing to even look at his former boyfriend out of fear. All an act, obviously, but Roman had to admit that it was a convincing one. It certainly didn’t help that their English teacher had never been fond of Roman, and had especially disliked him since he’d started missing her classes more often.

“Jared here—”

“Jay,” Jay corrected in a whisper.

“Jay here has claimed that, while you were dating,”—she said the word as if it left a sour taste in her mouth, which only made Roman angrier—“you forced him to write large portions of your essays for this class, and he claims to find it very likely that you plagiarized other sections as well. Do you deny this?”

“I—_what?!_” Roman’s voice was shrill. “Of course I deny it! I didn’t make him write anything! And I wouldn’t plagiarize!”

“That is no way to speak to your teacher,” Ms. Dawerst said. “Can you prove that you didn’t cheat?”

“What? Of course—” Roman broke off. How exactly could he prove that he hadn’t cheated? It was just Jay’s word against his own. “I swear to you, I would never cheat. Not on an essay or anything else. I promise you, there is no evidence that I cheated. You won’t find any. Because it doesn’t exist! I did not cheat!”

The teacher looked at him for a long moment, then sighed. “Very well, Roman. I will be looking over both your and Jay’s papers for the term again, and I will be looking closely for signs of plagiarism. If I find evidence that either of you cheated, you will be receiving a failing grade in this class. If I don’t, then the three of us can forget that this conversation ever happened.”

Roman nodded, supposing that this was the best he could hope for. “Thank you, Ms. Dawerst,” he said quietly. He left the room and stood in the hall, staring up at the ceiling. Jay slunk out a few seconds later. Roman looked at him hard. Jay had just tried to make him fail his English class! Roman couldn’t believe it. He could only be glad that Jay had apparently failed.

Except… Jay sure didn’t seem all that disappointed. He grinned at Roman as he sauntered past. Roman suddenly felt his blood run cold. A horrible feeling of dread fell over him.

“What did you do?” he asked softly.

“Me? Nothing,” Jay promised lightly. And he left.

…

Roman failed English.

Not one but two of his papers contained lines that appeared to be directly lifted from other academic papers. They were lines that Roman didn’t remember writing. He couldn’t think of any explanation for them being there, not unless Jay had put his plan into action well before they had broken up and sneaked in the lines during one of their study sessions. One of the papers had been turned in just after Roman first applied to Saint Gabriel. Had Jay really been planning for that long to destroy Roman’s life? Was it some sort of twisted backup plan, to try to keep Roman from leaving their hometown?

The school asked to speak to Roman’s parents about his apparent plagiarism, of course, and it wasn’t as if he could keep them from finding out about this. Roman wasn’t asked to attend the meeting, so he got to spend the evening pacing up and down the length of his house, too stressed to sit down.

The fallout did have one bright side: he still got to graduate. The high school wouldn’t expel him, which had been a very real fear of Roman’s, or force him to stay another semester to repeat the class, since he had technically fulfilled his graduation requirements even without the class. Roman could only be grateful to his _mamá, _who had found a section of the course catalog that stated that the screenwriting class he took junior year could be used as English credit.

Somehow, his parents even convinced the school to keep the incident off of his academic record, since it was the first time he’d ever been “caught” doing anything of the sort. He was a good kid who’d just been stressed in his last semester, they claimed. He didn’t have a history of disciplinary issues. Roman had never been suspended before, and he’d only received a handful of detentions in the four years he’d attended.

From what Roman gathered, Jay’s name had never come up in the meeting. Apparently, Ms. Dawerst had made it sound like she, the dutiful and ever-observant English teacher, had noticed some inconsistencies in Roman’s writing, and had taken it upon herself to recheck Roman’s papers, ultimately finding the plagiarized lines. Roman wasn’t sure whether to be grateful for or resentful of this. On one hand, he didn’t have to address the whole Jay situation with his parents. On the other hand, because he still didn’t want to admit to them what had happened, he didn’t have much evidence to work with as far as making them believe he hadn’t committed plagiarism went.

Because, of course, his parents hadn’t believed that Roman didn’t put those lines in his paper. And when they asked where else they could have come from, Roman didn’t have a good answer.

“I am very disappointed in you, _mijo_,” his _mamá _said that first night, when they got home from the meeting. She looked very sad.

Roman, who had finally stopped his pacing when he heard his parents’ car pull up to the house, stood on the opposite side of the kitchen table and stared morosely down at the floor. “I didn’t cheat,” he said softly, feeling as if he’d already said the words so many times that they had lost all meaning.

“We want to believe you, Roman,” his dad sighed. “But you can’t expect us to believe that the lines showed up in your papers all by themselves.”

“I’m not saying they did,” Roman said, “but it wasn’t me, I swear—”

“Roman, I do not like liars,” his _mamá_ said, sounding very tired. “Please, do not lie to me.”

“_Te lo juro, mamá_,” Roman practically sobbed. “_¡Te lo juro, _I didn’t cheat!”

His _mamá _set down her purse and came nearer. “Roman… you know if you were having trouble in school, you could have come to us, no? We could have gotten you a tutor. You didn’t have to do this.”

They didn’t believe him. Of course, they didn’t believe him. Why would they? Even Roman had to admit that his defense was pretty pathetic. And besides, even if Roman had always tried his best to be a good son, a good person, his _twin brother_ was… very much _not_. Maybe, to his parents, this whole thing only confirmed what they had suspected all along.

Standing there in the kitchen in the lengthening silence, Roman considered telling his parents about Jay. He really did consider it, as much as he very much didn’t want to open that can of worms. But… he didn’t feel ready to go into all that. And the last thing he wanted was to potentially give his parents more reason to think he was an awful son.

He couldn’t do it.

His _mamá_ stared at him, disappointed. His dad looked away, his jaw set, his posture stiff.

Roman turned and fled upstairs.

...

Two days after graduation, Roman got a letter in the mail.

He stood outside in front of the mailbox, looking down at the logo on the envelope. It was the very familiar symbol of the Saint Gabriel Academy of Fine Arts.

Every time Roman remembered that he was going to that school in the fall, he felt a bit better about everything that had happened. Sure, he had lost his boyfriend, his friends, his starring role in the high school theater department, the trust of his parents and teachers, any joy that might have come from graduating high school, and even his new car (his parents had taken that away with lightning speed); but at least he still had Saint Gabriel. He still had a promising future.

As Roman grabbed the stack of letters and turned to head back to the house, he wondered what this letter could be about. Saint Gabriel had sent a few in the past. Maybe it was another pamphlet about their most promising courses, or a map of the campus, or an invitation to visit. Roman would have appreciated becoming more familiar with the college he was set to attend. Or maybe it was simply a congratulations on his high school graduation.

Roman opened the door to the house and stepped inside, closing the door behind him. He set most of the mail on the kitchen table where his _mamá_ would find it, then took the cream-colored envelope for himself. He tore it open with gusto and a lack of precision that would have given his former theater department nemesis an aneurysm, and he took out the letter within.

_“Mr. Roman Prince,_

_We are regretful to inform you that upon further reconsideration of your application and of all relevant documents, we have decided to retract our previous offer of admission. Any tuition that has already been paid will be promptly returned to—"_

The letter fell from Roman’s hands.

…

Roman barely left his room for a week after he got the news. He didn’t know what to do.

He knew that Jay was behind his preemptive expulsion from Saint Gabriel, whether it was because of the plagiarism, or because of the other lies that he had already told, or because of some other thing that he had done and Roman didn’t even know about yet. Roman wasn’t sure exactly what had moved the college’s hand. But he knew that the decision was final. He would never convince Saint Gabriel to take him now.

He should tell his parents. They’d find out eventually, he knew. Roman was trying to figure out how to break it to them, but it was hard when he really didn’t want to tell them at all. He wanted to live in denial for as long as possible. He wanted his family to be proud of him again. He didn’t want to see the disappointment in their eyes as he told them that his picture perfect future was truly ruined.

Roman shoved his face into his pillow and screamed.

Soon after, there was a quiet knock at his bedroom door. Roman pushed himself up on his elbows and looked over his shoulder.

“Roman?” a familiar voice called. His _mamá_, of course. “Do you want some hot chocolate?”

Roman sniffed, looking back down at his pillow. “Not today, _Mamá_,” he called back.

“With cinnamon,” she tempted.

“No.”

“Okay,” she sighed, sounding disappointed. “Let me know if you change your mind. _Te quiero_.”

Her footsteps retreated back down the hall.

…

Roman could admit that he did not always make the best life choices. He didn’t always think them through as much as he should have. He’d made a lot of mistakes. But there was one life choice that must have been the worst he’d ever made.

That choice was the decision to pretend to go off to college.

Roman’s bags were all packed, money tucked into his wallet to purchase textbooks that Roman would never need. With his car still confiscated, Roman’s dad was driving him to a bus station. From there, he could catch a bus and go the rest of the way to Saint Gabriel. Of course, Roman planned to get off the bus a bit early.

Before he left, Roman gave his_ mamá_ a long, tight hug. She hugged him back just as firmly.

“I’ll miss you, little prince,” she said, tears in her eyes. “Have a good time at school. _Te quiero muchísimo.”_

“_Te quiero_,” Roman murmured back. He didn’t know what he was going to do after today. Where his life was going to go. But he was hopeful. He’d get an apartment, a job, maybe find a school that would accept him… he’d be away from Jay and from all his problems. And when was ready, he’d return, and he’d make his parents proud.

He’d get a fresh start. A second chance at the amazing life he wanted.

At the bus station, once Roman had his ticket and knew where to go, Roman and his dad said their goodbyes. Their hug didn’t last as long as the one between Roman and his _mamá_, nor was it as tight, but it was warm all the same.

“Make sure you keep your head on straight,” his dad said seriously as they broke apart. “No funny business. I know you can do well, Roman. I believe in you.”

“Thanks,” Roman said quietly. The word tasted like sawdust.

“Good luck.”

“Bye,” Roman said. He watched until his dad disappeared. Then he grabbed the handle of his rolling suitcase and made his way to the bus.

…

“As you can probably guess,” the present-day Roman sighed, “my amazing ‘fresh start’ didn’t turn out so great. I got my apartment, all right, but I ran out of money after a couple of months… didn’t manage to get a job before I was kicked out. Made some more bad choices. And, well… here we are. That’s it, I guess. That’s… why I was homeless.”

There was a long silence. Finally, Patton sat up straight.

“Roman, I’m going to ask you a question, and I need you to be honest with me.”

“Um… okay?”

“Do your parents know where you are?”

Of course he would ask about that. Roman should have known.

“Roman?”

“…No,” Roman admitted. “No. I haven’t talked to them since I left.”

“Can we call them? Do you know their phone number?”

Roman shook his head.

“Well, that’s okay. We can find them online, or in the phone book…. Would that be alright with you?”

Roman stared. He hadn’t spoken to his family in years. Would they even want to hear from him? Wouldn’t they be angry that he had left without saying anything, that he had lied about going to college? What if they told him he should have stayed away?

But they were his family. And Roman had to admit that he missed them.

“Yeah,” Roman blurted, before he could change his mind. “Yeah. That would be alright.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed!


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